On Tuesday, fans of the flag gathered at Beermann's grave to commemorate Flag Day.

"She is connected to Viljandi by way of Viljandi's Old Cemetery being her final resting place," explained historian Jaak Pihlak, chair of the Viljandi County Heritage Protection Association.

Her grave, marked by a German-language gravestone, was found some 20 years ago, and a second stone with an inscription in Estonian was added describing the role Beermann played in sewing the first Estonian flag.

"And now we try each year to commemorate her role in the birth of our national flag," Pihlak added.

Secret society flag

In 1870, a group of Estonian university students and prominent figures in the Estonian national awakening underway started getting together in Tartu to read the national epic "Kalevipoeg" and learn more about the Estonian language and culture together. In time, the get-togethers were more formalized and the nascent organization, in a bid for recognition by the ruling Baltic-German umbrella organization as a fraternity, chose blue, black and white as their signature colors in 1881.

Sometime during the winter of 1883-1884, the subject of a flag for the still officially yet-unrecognized Estonian fraternity Estonian Students' Society (EÜS) came up at the home of Karl August and Paula Hermann, the latter of whom decided to arrange for a tricolor in their fraternity colors to be made for them.

Involved in the effort by various accounts were fraternity members' wives and sisters.

According to more detailed descriptions, however, Emilie Beermann, whose brother Christoph Wilhelm was EÜS' pledgemaster (vanamees) at the time, bought the necessary blue, black and white silk fabric from a shop in Põltsamaa and sewed the flag in her room. Beermann was 23 years old.

The massive flag, measuring 375 by 174 centimeters – or nearly 12 feet by 6 feet – was completed in spring 1884 and delivered to Tartu, where it would await consecration in secret in Otepää that June.

Sewist, schoolteacher

Emilie Rosalie Beermann was born in December 1860, the oldest of Põltsamaa Parish School director Gustav Heinrich Beermann and Caroline Beermann's eight children. After graduating from the parish school herself, Beermann continued there as a teacher.

In February 1895, a decade after sewing the now-famous original Estonian flag, Beermann married Jaan Lillak, lord of Sürgavere Manor. Less than a year later, on January 2, 1896, Beermann died following a difficult childbirth. She was buried in Viljandi Old Cemetery.

The original blue, black and white flag survives to this day, still owned by EÜS, and since 2016 has been on permanent display at the Estonian National Museum (ERM) in Tartu.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!